Very nice! Never heard of them, but with a name like Turtle Skull I knew I would like them! Thanks for sharing!

We got that one in Germany as well

Not attempting stand-up, too

Okay, a bunch of thoughts come to mind.

I love Diablo. However, I think a big part of it is the atmosphere and also me being young and never having seen anything like it. That’s pretty hard to recreate. I heard the game Halls of Torment nailed the Diablo atmosphere, but as a Vampire Survivors-like. Basically it’s focused on the grind and progression. Maybe, that’s something for you? Personally, I haven’t found anything that is as fun as Diablo, so every now and then I play Diablo 1 with a new mod, like the new The Hell 3 Mod. It brings back the wonder of the unknown, because there is lots of new stuff in there. I also loved Book of Demons, which is basically a streamlined version of Diablo 1 with a dark comedic twist.

I think you underestimate the satisfaction that comes from clearing levels in Diablo. Yes, it could be a different theme and still work, but isn’t that proof of how potent it is? So the question is, why does it feel like a grind to you? I wager it’s because the magic Diablo had for you got lost over time. You know how they work now, you’ve seen behind the curtain and thus don’t feel the danger, the intrigue like you used to. Maybe you will find it in games like Elden Ring that you don’t see through right away?

About the stats progression: I think a very big part of the fun of progressing your character comes from doing it the way you want. It’s a form of expression. You want to be a Necromancer that only uses Golems or a Mage focused on ice. I think what a lot of Diablo-likes miss is finding a good way to allow lots of expression in character development. Too often I feel boxed in by the class and it doesn’t feel like it’s my Tinkerer, but the Tinkerer instead. A good Diablo-like has abilities that define the character instead of just simple stat increases and cooldown reductions and all that.

Lastly, if you haven’t seen it there is a great Diablo 4 Critique on YouTube that might give some more food for thought!

I’m sorry, but these protests are going to far! That was a perfectly fine soup!

He does, too

Klar, ich erwarte jetzt nicht, dass die schmilzt sobald man heißes Wasser reinfüllt. Aber nachdem immer wieder Studien rauskommen, dass sich aus verschiedenen Plastiksorten dann doch Stoffe über Zeit rauslösen, wenn sie warm werden, hab ich da einfach kein Vertrauen mehr, auch wenn es angeblich sicher sein soll. Aber das darf gern jeder für sich entscheiden.

Bei der stört mich, dass alles aus Plastik ist und ich da heißes Wasser reingießen soll.

…because they know how to swear in Russian?

Better late then never, thanks!

I just realized I didn’t respond to your hearing issues: I generally don’t think that these would be a problem for learning martial arts. Of course it depends on your teachers teaching style, but generally they show you what to do and that is the most important part. They might have a metaphor or say for how long the next training sections go, but if you can read lips, you should be fine. The essential stuff you can only learn by watching and doing it yourself.

At first it’s hard to follow what’s being demonstrated, but you will get better at that fast. The beginning is always hard and you will feel like you’re slow and clumsy and stupid, because everybody else doesn’t seem to have trouble. That is completely normal and everybody there knows it, so don’t worry! As soon as you’ve had more practical experience your mirror-neurons will help you translate what you see into what you need to make your body do.

Also if you let your teachers and training partners know you’re hard of hearing, I’m sure they will be happy to accommodate. Everybody is there to improve and help others to improve as well. If they aren’t, that’s a huge red flag. Go find a better gym.

I trained Aikido for 10+ years, but that’s now also 10+ years ago. Aikido used to be pretty well regarded and was hyped for some years thanks to being featured in martial arts movies and Steven Seagal in particular. Unfortunately, with MMA fights becoming popular, people realized that a lot of “traditional” martial arts where more art than actual fighting. Over time Aikido became a laughing stock among martial arts enthusiasts. This process was again helped by Steven Seagal, who -as the defacto face of Aikido to the rest of the world outside japan- just got more and more ridiculous and heinous in his statements and actions.

This is all very unfortunate, because Aikido is a really fascinating and cool looking martial art. To this day a lot of the throws in action movies (for example in the John Wick franchise) are actual Aikido techniques. (Some traditional Ju-Juitsu practitioners might argue that it’s actually JJ, because Aikido has adopted a lot of techniques from JJ and Judo, but I would disagree, looking at the way they are applied. In the end that’s just a nerd argument either way.)

Aikido was developed by Morihei Ueshiba, a man with a fascinating history! It grew with his physical, spiritual and philosophical development from a straight forward, practical combat system (at the time called Aiki-Jutsu) into a non-violent, spiritual martial art (then called Aikido). One of the reasons there are very different kinds of Aikido practiced today, distinct in how violent and spiritual they are, is that their masters studied at different times under Ueshiba, who continually became softer and more spiritual with his age. However, although developed decidedly after the time of the Samurai in Japan a lot of the techniques still focus on disarming people carrying swords or reversely focus on attackers trying to prevent you from drawing your sword. This means most of the attacks trained in Aikido are people grabbing your wrist and then not letting go, which looks weird if there is no sword. This also limits the practicality. Towards the end of Ueshiba’s life his focus was not to teach a system to defend yourself anymore. His goal was to unite the world spiritually through Aikido, literally. He sent his top students out into the world often in countries, which languages they don’t even speak, to teach and spread Aikido. Not to gain money or fame, but genuinely to make the world a better place by helping people to spiritually grow through the practice of Aikido.

What and how Aikido is practiced varies depending on the style and your teacher. It goes the extreme from what is called practical Aikido, which is still dedicated to self-defense, to styles that are practiced solo in the form of Katas, resembling what you might see from Tai-Chi or Qui-Gong practitioners in the park. Generally, it is practiced in pairs with a so-called “cooperating” opponent (as opposed to an “resisting” opponent as would be usual for Ju-Juitsu). Actually, in Aikido we don’t speak of an opponent. There is only a “giving”/“throwing” and a “receiving”/“getting thrown” partner, because Aikido is supposed to be peaceful. I’ll still call it opponent or attacker here, though.

The central idea of Aikido is to embrace and merge the attackers energy with yours and then redirecting it without harming anyone, breaking only the attackers balance and/or throwing them. This is of course a very high-level goal. Basically you’re trying to skip all the nitty-gritty, violent, messy fighting (that Ueshiba did learn and teach extensively back in the day) and concentrate on the end goal of non-violently dissolving confrontations. Assuming that with enough training this goal can be reached, it means you will not be able to use most of what you practice in a real-life fight until you pretty much have “mastered Aikido”. Then you will, supposedly, be at such a level that you can defend any attack peacefully. Most Aikido practitioners are wise enough not to test this out, mostly because they prefer peace and harmony and aren’t training to prove anything. Most Aikidokas I know are training to better themselves, but there will always be exceptions. The teachers I’ve trained under did not make Aikido out to be about self-defense at all. When questioned by new students they usually say, that it might help you a little, but this is not what we train here.

Practicing Aikido will help you get in better shape, improve your health and especially your balance. Aikido practice will teach you how to properly roll and fall, which -at least where I live- will come in handy much more often than fighting skills. It is also a lot of fun to practice and it looks cool. Most schools will also train with wood swords (Aiki-ken) and short staffs (Aiki-bo). This all will be especially cool, if you’re into Japan, because Aikido is very much a traditional Japanese martial art, even though it is rather young, so we’re basically cosplaying as Samurai while training.

The best advice I can give you for selecting a martial art and gym is this:

• It is almost more important who you train with and under than what you are training. Try out every gym and see if you like the people and vibe there.
• Pick something that’s fun. Otherwise you will have trouble going regularly and making progress. If you don’t do it for fun, you will most likely quit the first time you encounter resistance or stop making fast progress
• Pick a gym that’s easy to get to, because having to travel a long time will make it harder to stick with it
• Prepare your training bag and put it besides your door so you just have to pick it up and go. This will make it much easier to go, when your motivation is low

It’s a hyper loop!

Can you elaborate how and what actions will affect my feed? I don’t quite understand how this works without any login as I can’t vote or write comments. Also how do my subscriptions affect it if I’m logged in to an instance?

I do like it and would wish something like that as an app.

Definitely worth it even without the community patches!

Haven’t been following current anime. Started watching Dungeon Meshi because I like the idea and it looked fun. Absolutely in love with it.

To scratch the fantasy anime itch between episodes I started watching Frieren: Beyond journey’s end. Hooked me with the first episode and has only been getting better!

I did heighten the phrasing for comedic purposes. I mean essayists like Lindsay Ellis ;)

I want to add that the box office income is simply one of the only objective metrics to compare the success of films.

The first time I saw a bag like that, I was shocked as well. Seems like just the worst idea to use plastic to create tea bags. Turns out it is and they weren’t made out of plastic. It’s a starch based fiber that is biodegradable. I don’t think you could have plastic tea bags here in the EU in any case. I’d wager yours isn’t plastic either. Yeah, so you probably got mildly infuriated over nothing, just like I did the first time I saw one of these 🤷

But the original Ghost in the Shell is perfect! I just rewatched it this weekend and it still looks amazing! Why remake that?